More Than Hazel

At first, it would seem ridiculous that a woman who won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Tony for a heavily dramatic role in Come Back, Little Sheba would be cast in a light-weight domestic sitcom on TV. But Hazel was far from Shirley Booth’s first stab at comedy. For that, you have to go back to radio and “Where the Elite Meet to Eat.”

Here’s a feature column from the Associated Press, Sept. 17, 1961.

Shirley Booth Late to TV
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
HOLLYWOOD — The last time Shirley Booth had a continuing role in broadcasting was 20 years ago when she played Miss Duffy, the waitress, in radio’s great and well-remembered Duffy’s Tavern.
On September 28, Miss Booth comes to television as the star of NBC’s Hazel, a situation comedy revolving about the maid who runs the Baxter family with an iron glove on a velvet hand.
Between Miss Duffy and Hazel, she has become one of the great stars of the American stage and screen, winner of a bucketful of acting awards, including an Oscar and the official title of “world’s best actress,” for her performance in “Come Back, Little Sheba.”
Booth fans may legitimately be a little nervous about the vehicle which will bring this versatile performer into their living rooms each week. Hazel was born as a cartoon character in a weekly magazine in 1942 and has been appearing regularly ever since. It is hard enough to give life to a cartoon character. It is even harder when the background is upper-middle-class family life, so thoroughly explored in TV comedy it has become a cliche.
Miss Booth, however, feels confident and calm.
“I guess I’m a little late getting into weekly television,” she said, almost apologetically. “But then I always get in at the tail-end of everything. But as long as I’m occupied and busy with plays, I’m perfectly content.”
She has had Hazel on her mind for several years, however, Ted Key, the cartoonist who created the character, wrote a play about his brainchild several years ago and presented it to Miss Booth.
“I didn’t feel that it was right—I thought even then that one play was not as good for Hazel as an episodic medium.
“But once we were under way, the thing I had to do was get some depth, a different dimension to her character. The comedy will take care of itself, but the problem was to give her warmth. The only really important job of the actress is to get the audience interested in and caring about the character.”
‘Create a Character...’
Key’s job as a magazine cartoon-1st is to produce one laughter-evoking picture a week. Miss Booth’s job in creating a flesh-and-blood Hazel was “to create a character, not a caricature.”
“So the audience won’t always laugh,” she continued seriously. “That would ruin everything. To build up comedy, you must build up some protection around the funny lines. You must have arid spaces—a desert—before you can have an oasis. So you must have contrast to humor to make it effective.”
Now in her early 50s, Shirley Booth has been an actress since she was 12 and joined a Hartford, Conn., stock company.
In 1925 she was the ingenue (with Humphrey Bogart, another youngster) in the Broadway production of “Hell’s Bells.” In 1939 she won critical notices that topped those of Katharine Hepburn for her acting in “The Philadelphia Story.” But although the rave notices—for serious parts and for comedy—rolled in over the years, stardom came with “Come Back, Little Sheba” in 1950, when she played the poignant, lost Lola Delaney in the Broadway play.
Has Two Poodles
A small, round-faced woman with a quiet wit and easy smile, Miss Booth has hedged her Hollywood bets. She continues to maintain her New York City apartment, is having an addition built on her Cape Cod home—and is sharing her apartment-hotel quarters with her two poodles, “Prego” and “Grazia.”
Her marriage to comedian Ed Gardner ended in divorce in 1942—and it also ended the best years of his Duffy’s Tavern because she left the cast. She subsequently married investment broker W. H. Baker Jr. who died 10 years ago. “I keep very busy,” she confided. “My emotional life now? You can see the answer to that easily: I own two poodles.”

Booth’s Hazel caught the eyes of viewers. Among them were Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, always looking for sources for new cartoon characters. In 1962, The Jetsons debuted. Just as they tagged The Honeymooners on The Flintstones, TV critics equated The Jetsons with Hazel, thanks to Jean Vander Pyl’s portrayal of the robot maid, Rosey, who suspiciously sounded like Booth’s Miss Duffy. Writers had her calling George Jetson “Mr. J,” just as Hazel addressed her boss as “Mr. B.”

There is only so much you can do in a domestic sitcom, and Hazel staved off disappearing from prime time in 1965 by switching networks and replacing almost all of the cast. Hazel polished the silver for one more season. Booth had been hospitalised for exhaustion and likely didn’t want to carry on with a weekly series.

Better make that “weakly” series. The new Mr. B., Ray Fulton, complained to Dick Kleiner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association that the scripts stunk; they were full of basic grammatical errors, plot flaws and repetitions, and sloppy writing. “What’s amazing,” he said, “is how Shirley Booth can make something out of nothing. It has been an education to watch her work.”

The Associated Press talked to her again after the cancellation. This is from April 16, 1966:

Shirley Booth Chooses ‘Menagerie’ Role on TV
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—A Hollywood trade paper recently carried a note that a producer of a television series was trying to get Raymond Burr, whose “Perry Mason” series recently came to an end, to play a trial lawyer in one episode. It is extremely doubtful that, no matter how attractive the series, money or role, Burr could be persuaded to take the assignment. This is typecasting, more dreaded by actors than a low Nielsen rating.
“Well,” said Shirley Booth with a smile as she concentrated on maneuvering her hardtop into a right-hand lane for a turn onto Sunset Boulevard, “nobody has offered me any parts as a domestic.”
Miss Booth, an Oscar winner—“Come Back Little Sheba”—and a three-time winner of Broadway’s “Tony,” has wound up five busy years of playing the title role in “Hazel,” a comedy that earned her an “Emmy” as well.
* * *
The first assignment she accepted was the lead in a CBS special, Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” which will be produced in London in October for broadcast early in December.
“Of course, I’ve been offered lots of guest star roles,” she continued, moving into the noon-hour stream of traffic. “And some series. I really don’t want to get into another series but I’m very reluctant to say ‘never’ about anything because something might come along and I’ll change my mind.”
When the chance to do the Williams play turned up, she said, she was even reluctant about that, at first.
“I remember Laurette Taylor in the Amanda part,” she said. “I remember that performance so vividly — she really contributed something important to theater with it. I didn’t feel as if I wanted to take on something in which I’d just be doing an imitation of somebody else.”
She drove into a driveway of a handsome little house on a hillside in a secluded section and there followed a leisurely luncheon in the patio. One eye was on the clock, however, for she was due back at the studio in midafternoon to wind up chores on a two-hour film, “Package Deal” she is making for NBC’s “World Premiere” series next season.
“I also decided to do this film, even though it broke into my Cape Cod summer,” she continued. Pleasant parts — women with humor and wholesome outlooks — are hard to find these days, and I just didn’t feel like playing a lady drunk or a woman of loose morals and those parts are all over the place now.”
* * *
Meanwhile, re-runs, of “Hazel” will be on television channels all over the lot—which provides a painless steady income for the star.
Miss Booth, still remembered fondly as “Miss Duffy” in radio’s immortal “Duffy’s Tavern” and as a musical comedy star of Broadway’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” has four homes.
Her voting residence is the hillside house in Los Angeles. For weekends and holidays in winter, there is her recently acquired desert home beyond Palm Springs. Back East she has her summer home in Chatham on the Cape, plus the co-op apartment she owns in New York.
A widow, she enjoys movie and theater going, does a little Sunday-type painting, collects antiques, and is a passionate art collector. Most of all, though, she likes acting.

There were plenty of pre-broadcast newspaper publicity interviews by Booth for The Glass Menagerie. She got an Emmy nomination for that role, too.

One more sitcom awaited Booth. She played a widow in A Touch of Grace, that ran on ABC in 1973. Why did she come back to television? She told a press junket (as reported in the Omaha World-Herald) she had read the scripts for three series and preferred Grace. “I like the regimentation of doing the show, because I like to be a certain place at a certain time. For a lonely woman, it’s nice to have a built-in family.”

The show had a very good cast—J. Pat O’Malley, Warren Berlinger and the wonderful Marian Mercer—but eked out only 13 episodes. The finale featured a monologue by Grace to a table that represented her late husband’s gravestone. O’Malley and producers Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein cried when Booth rehearsed the scene and, as reported by Cecil Smith of Los Angeles Times syndicate, the two long-time TV show-runners quietly marvelled to each other about her acting abilities.

Booth decided to retire not much later and lived until the age of 94, passing away in 1992.

Funt's Stunts

There’s always been a subset of television programming, dating back to the network radio days, of shows that deliberately embarrass and laugh at innocent people. Most make me cringe.
Ralph Edwards was particularly smirky and smarmy as he ridiculed people in ridiculous situations on Truth or Consequences (his image was counterbalanced by some excellent charity work and a half-hour of sentiment called This is Your Life). Art Linkletter was a little more tolerable on People Are Funny (his image was counterbalanced by eliciting amusing answers by naïve children on House Party).

One of these programmes I did like was Candid Camera. It may have trod the line, but when I watched it in the 1960s any embarrassment about a situation didn’t last long and we always saw the victim was let in on the joke at the end. (Bob and Ray came up with a parody called “Secret Camera” where the host was beaten up by angry victims). The show was so popular, CBS aired reruns Monday through Friday, which is when I watched.

It helped, too, the host was a chap named Allen Funt. He was no chortling, “aren’t we devils” type. He came across as an ordinary, unaffected guy, not an over-the-top television host.

Funt created Candid Camera, which was actually born as Candid Microphone on ABC radio, the network that allowed recorded voices. The show worked on radio and Funt was able to move it to television, where it blossomed. But it took a little bit of time.

If nothing else, Funt was a self-promotor. Not surprising perhaps because, in 1940, he was the head of a copy department at ad agency. In 1942, he became the writer and director of the Blue Network’s Army-Navy Game, where a soldier and sailor took part in gag demonstrations. The Army itself beckoned for Funt a year later, and we find him at Camp Gruber in Oklahoma, where he was behind a local radio show called Behind the Dog Tag, that made GI wishes come true—after a stunt, of course.

The Gruber Guidon reminisced in late 1944: “Remember the night the soldier had to had to fill the colonel’s hat with catsup and mashed potatoes, then answer to the colonel himself? And the night a blind-folded Pfc made love to a donkey? And the night a soldier was dunked in a tank of water and came up with a watch and a real live pinup girl in a bathing suit?”

After the war, he produced Johnny Olsen’s Ladies Be Seated before selling ABC on Candid Microphone, which debuted on the same network June 28, 1947. (Alan Courtney and Art Green had hosted a series with the same name on WMCA in 1938, but it involved interviews from night clubs). Pretty soon, the papers were talking about it.

Well, in some cases, they were talking about Funt. And Funt was a great story-teller. Here’s one of a number of feature stories about his adventures in stunt-land. It’s from July 30, 1947.

My New York
By MEL HEIMER
NEW YORK—Since the publication of the Wakeman book of the same name, the hucksters have been very much in the spotlight. They are, of course, advertising agency men who go around peddling radio shows.
There is a surface hilarity to their asinine activities which Wakeman exploited neatly, but underneath, most of them are colossal bores. It was thus a pleasure, the other day, to talk to a reformed huckster.
This is a 32-year-old, slightly bald, calm-looking gentleman named Allen Funt, who has progressed from huckstering to the point where he now is a "gimmick" man in radio.
Webster defines "gimmick" as "anything tricky"—which means that the fabulous Funt goes around thinking up trick ideas for radio shows. And here is a man, friends, in words of Broadwayite Al Slep, he makes the average zany character "sound like a bookkeeper with the diamond pin for 50 years' service in sawdust mill.”
Back in the days when Allen was a promising young huckster, he gave more than one indication of his genius. At one time he was trying to peddle P. K. Wrigley, the gum magnate, an idea for a radio show—but Wrigley, he says, just wouldn't pay no never mind to his letters, wires and calls.
Finally, one day he took an old plank of wood, stuck four pieces of well-chewed gum on its bottom side and mailed it express to Wrigley. "I have had these analysed," Allen's accompanying letter informed Wrigley darkly, "and NONE is Wrigley's. Let our radio show correct this situation." He got his audience with P. K. "Of course," Allen adds now, "the show never materialized, anyway. But it was a moral triumph."
Another stunt that Allen pulled more than once was to write a sales letter to a prospective client, then tear it into a hundred pieces, drop it Into a wastebasket—and mail the wastebasket to the customer. “They ALWAYS pasted the pieces together," he recalls, dreamily.
However, huckstering palled on this New York native, who is a Cornell graduate and an artist and sculptor in his spare time. He became a radio idea man—his Groucho Marx mind ran rampant. He has a show now in which an attempt is made to really bring candor to the airwaves.
Thus, recently, Funt broadcast the actual awakening of a man by his wife in the morning (the wife was in cahoots with Funt and his aides), complete to the sleepy guy's muttering of "Get lost, will ya?" He also broadcast the transaction when a harrassed soul hocked his watch in a pawn shop. It turned out the hocker needed some quick money for a set of false teeth.
As an Army corporal in Tulsa, Okla., during the war, young Funt staged a radio show whereby 10 GI's, who had written letters, had their greatest wishes come true. One soldier meditated long and then decided he wanted to dive into a swimming pool full of iced tea.
Eyes a-gleam, Allen got a whole battalion to dig a swimming pool—and filled it with cooling oolong. Another soldier wanted to see some of the animals he had left on the farm. Funt badgered a general to commandeer a fleet of amphibious trucks that ferried in enough livestock to fill Noah's old LST.
One of Funt's best stunts helped win the war. Called on for a gimmick to sell war bonds, he created a dilly. With several thousand people jammed into an auditorium he seated on the stage a little old woman who hadn't seen her GI son for five years. With a roll of drums, the hall was darkened at the entrance to the hall, in a spotlight, stood the son.
The gimmick? For every $1,000 war bond purchased by the audience, the son could take one step closer to his old mother. At $50,000, with half the audience in hysterics, crying men and women finally rushed into the aisles and carried the GI up to his ma.
On his current candid show, Allen's immediate goal is to broadcast one of President Truman's sneezes. He already is lining up a mechanical crew to go to Washington for the purpose.
However, Funt's most grandoise gimmick seems due to die unborn. He wants to get some manufacturer to turn out a Christmas stocking as large as the Empire State building, hang it and have it filled by radio listeners with gifts to be sent to the needy the world over.
There are two main obstacles: 1—You would have to build a bigger structure than the Empire State on which to hang the stocking. 2—It would have to be knitted by Bethlehem Steel.
These are the kind of people we have in New York. I ask you—how can you get bored here?

Funt parlayed the radio show into a number of books, including dialogue from the broadcasts, several volumes of “secret recordings” on Columbia records, 40 short films released by Columbia (and re-released even into the 1960s) and sales training films for liquor, mattress and appliance companies. When ABC’s TV flagship station WJZ-TV finally went on the air on August 10, 1948, Candid Microphone was dropped in the 8 to 8:30 p.m. time slot opposite Texaco Star Theatre on NBC starring Henny Youngman, with Paul Winchell and Bert Lahr. Then, it was back to radio.

Candid Microphone became Candid Camera on NBC-TV at the start of the 1949-50 season before appearing on CBS from July to October 1950. Philip Morris dropped the show in favour of bandleader/starmaker Horace Heidt, despite placing 15th in the ratings in metropolitan New York. But Funt wasn’t hurting. Associated Artists Productions bought his TV films (recut from 89 half hours) for $200,000 in 1954 and put them in syndication. Funt bought them back in April 1959 for $40,000.

Through most of the ‘50s, while Truth or Consequences and House Party were attracting audiences, no network wanted Funt’s show. Finally, it surfaced on a semi-regular basis starting in April 1958 on, of all places, the Jack Paar version of the Tonight show (columnist Hy Gardner proclaimed they “provide the week’s high in hilarity,” opining Paar was getting stale). Then it surfaced as a regular five-minute segment of The Garry Moore Show in the 1959-60 season. Moore, his announcer Durward Kirby and cast members Marion Lorne and Carol Burnett (chained to a blacksmith’s table) would take part in Funt’s stunts shot behind a two-way mirror or a hole in a folding screen. Amazingly, few people recognised Moore, whose face had been seen day and night on television through the 1950s.

One critic who cried “humiliation!” “sadism!” and “bully!” at Funt was Scripps-Howard writer Harriet Van Horne who, if she were reviewing Santa Claus, would ignore the free gifts to good children, and instead sharply censure him because she might possibly have to vacuum chimney soot from her carpet.

In April 1960, it was reported Candid Camera would become a regular series. It debuted on Sunday, Oct. 2nd, at 10 p.m., sandwiched between Jack Benny and What’s My Line? Funt was there and so was singer Dorothy Collins. But there was a behind-the-scenes war. Eddie Albert had been hired to host and shot some shows with Arthur Godfrey set to be a guest star. But producer Bob Banner, at least according to the Hollywood Reporter, decided he wanted Godfrey to host. Albert found greener pastures. Or green something.

“Warmhearted, prankish,” declared Ben Gross of the Daily News about the premiere, pointing to a Collins segment where she “drove” into a gas station without an engine. Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press opined “I suspect the gag will wear thin pretty quickly.”

Well, the series carried on until 1967, was revived several times and, even today, reruns are seen on cable TV. The only thing that wore thin was Godfrey, who lasted a season and then griped to Donald Freeman of the Copley News Service that CBS thought he was through, that Funt aired their differences in public and that Candid Camera wasn’t his kind of show anyway. Then he went on to call Julius LaRosa a liar (almost seven years after Godfrey fired him), and rip singer Frank Parker (“he ruined himself”) and singing group the Mariners (“What they used to have, they don’t have any more.”). Sounds like your Lipton tea isn’t what’s bitter, Arthur.

Funt responded by going back to his Garry Moore days, hiring Durwood Kirby to co-host, and carrying on. And on. And on.

Funt died in 1999 just before his 85th birthday.

One other thing about Funt—he was a cartoonist. He had attended the Pratt Institute in New York. His strip appeared in papers in the 1940s. (If he didn’t draw it, I will stand corrected).

Of Sloops, Dolphins and Mauve

A pleasant half hour could be spent on a weekday afternoon in the 1960s watching four people in show business uncover liars.

We’re speaking of To Tell the Truth.

The panel evolved until it featured my favourite version—Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle. Like all good panel shows, the four had a chemistry but were all a little different from each other.

This is where I know Poston the best. The newspapers of the day reported CBS wanted a comedian on the panel, so Poston auditioned as a fill-in on January 20, 1959 and soon was given a regular job (Bye, bye, Hy Gardner!). More people today probably think of him working on a Bob Newhart sitcom. His fame came well before that, as one of the man-on-the-street interviewees on Steve Allen’s Sunday night variety show on CBS from 1957 into 1959.

Of course, fame is never instant, and it’s interesting seeing what people did along their path to bigger things. In 1946, Poston and his brother Dick were featured in the Del-York Players’ production of the Corliss Archer comedy “Kiss and Tell” at the Rehoboth Beach resort’s Straw Hat Theatre. “Tom is plenty funny and droll,” decided the critic for the Salisbury, Maryland Times on Aug. 8.

Three years later, he appeared with the famous Kenley Players in summer stock in “Petticoat Fever,” starring the famous Sonny Tufts. The theatre page Mahanoy City Record-American of Sept. 21, 1949 contained this verdict: “we have found his performance outstanding. He just doesn’t seem to know how to ‘do’ a bad job. This week, as a British nobleman, he deserves every complimentary adjective that can be paid an actor for a stellar performance.” (Poston told Associated Press entertainment reporter Cynthia Lowry in 1964 that “it was great experience but financially disastrous.” He and Dick had formed the stock company in Delaware).

It was on to the New York stage for Poston. And television. Sid Shalit, in the Daily News of March 11, 1955, wrote: “Tom Poston, the much-heralded young satirist, is beginning to liven up WABC-TV’s daily two and a half-hour ‘Entertainment’ stanza. He is highly personable and quick-witted with a professional aplomb far beyond his young years.” At the start of that year, he had been appearing in a satire on stage at the Plymouth Theatre on West 45th. Columnist Earl Wilson gave him a spotlight in this feature column of Feb. 17, 1955:

Actor Tom Poston Has Lots Of 'Homes' In Ohio
By EARL WILSON

NEW YORK—I’m almost willing to bet that young actor Tom Poston was kidding me with his explanation of why most of Ohio is his "home town.”
We were chatting backstage where he’s making big hit on Broadway with his drunk scene in “The Grand Prize,” starring June Lockhart. Critics praised Poston for his "shrewd characterization of an inhibited young man liberated by drink."
“Whereabouts are you from?” I asked innocently.
"Well," Tom said, leaning back in an armchair, "I'm from Steubenville, Massillon, Canton, Williamsport, Mount Gilead, Toledo, Marion, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Upper Sandusky.
"BUT I WAS born on a sloop off the coast of North Carolina. Birth certificate's registered in Charlotte.
“The reason we moved around so much,” he went on with a smile, "was that Dad always liked to keep one step ahead of the sheriff. He was busy in those days making 90-proof beverages without the bother of labels and stuff."
"You mean he was a moonshiner?"
"Please,” Tom held up a hand in apparent shock, "Dad calls himself a chemist.
“That explains why I happened to be born aboard a sailing sloop."
AND, OF COURSE, you could only expect, in the light of his background and the part he's now playing, that Tom claims he hasn't a had a drink in three years.
“My first Broadway show,” he said, "was Jose Ferrer’s ‘Cyrano de Bergerac.’
Then I was in his production of ‘The Insect Comedy.” I followed that up with ‘King Lear,’ starring Louis Calhern."
Poston also did a few productions in the Children's World Theater. "I was a wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, he said, and a more pooped wolf you never saw. Besides having more lines than Hamlet, that wolf had to dance, sing and tumble, shouting all the lines through a heavy mask. At the end of the second act, I just lay down on the stage.
“In that part I near to died!”
"By the way,” I said, hoping to pin him down to a specific Buckeye town, "got any relatives in Ohio?"
Nope," he replied, "most of them are in Kentucky.”

He gave some interviews during the time on To Tell the Truth. We’ve mentioned the one with Lowry. He once told the Miami Herald how he slept in and Johnny Olson was forced to pad his warm-up to make up time until he got to the studio. There’s an interesting one from Rick DuBrow of UPI (click on story on the right) about the time the two appeared together in a show at Northwestern University and “helped” Poston’s career. Well, it actually wasn’t an interview as Poston didn’t say anything.

That’s kind of like this syndicated half-pager from January 20, 1967. Poston never did talk about the game show. Instead, he showed the quirky, and I suspect deliberately mischievous, side of his sense of humour.

In Search of the 'Real' Tom Poston
By LEE VINSON
NEW YORK—Of the four knowing panelists on CBS-TV's To Tell the Truth, Tom Poston has the highest rating when it comes to identifying the genuine character and shunting aside the bogus "expert." His batting average, in tabbing the genuine article, is 75 per cent.
And so, just as Lewis Carroll once ventured on the trail of the snark, I set off in quest of Poston.
"Sure," he said on the phone. "Drop by the stage door right after the show and we'll talk it up."
WE MET AN hour later. In sports jacket and faded slacks, he had the casual air of a man just back from raking leaves. His blue eyes met the world straight on. His stance was one of leniency toward his peers.
"How about lunch someplace?" I asked. "No better place than the Stage Delicatessen," he said.
"Kind of noisy for conversation," I ventured.
"But quiet enough for Hungarian goulash," he replied.
En route to the delicatessen, I asked him how one man in one lifetime had stored up so many irrelevant facts.
"YEAH, LET'S talk about that," he said. "But first, we'll stop in here for a minute."
We entered another CBS-TV theater where Garry Moore was rehearsing his show. Everybody smiled at our companion.
"Hey, Tom,” someone called. It was Morey Amsterdam with Rose Marie. "Tom," Amsterdam said, "you know everything. Do Dolphins really . . . ?”
"Dolphins are okay," Poston assured him. "But are you aware that Lake Nicaragua in Central America is the only fresh water lake in the world which has man eating sharks in it?"
"No kidding,” said Rose Marie, aghast.
AMSTERDAM said, "But do Dolphins—?"
"See you," Poston told them, and waved at everyone as we left.
By the time we got to the corner, a production assistant from To Tell The Truth was trying to hail a cab.
"How'd you know about the sharks in Nicaragua?" I asked.
"Let's help her grab a cab," Poston said. So Poston went into the street and did all the waving to flag the cab, ushered the lady into it and saw her on her way.
We made it almost another block when Poston stopped to observe a building whose side was newly exposed because another structure had been torn away.
"LOOK AT that faded sign," he said, pointing. "An ad for liver pills. There's a date. 1912."
We studied the side of the building carefully, with minds full of wonder about liver pills and all the events of 1912. Eight people joined us, staring at the sign, and maybe they, too, were thinking about 1912. But, after all, in New York, people will stare at anything. As we walked away, they stared at us.
"Nice bunch of people," Poston said.
"They seemed to get along fine," I agreed. I was thinking of a conversational gambit to plumb the depths of Poston's knowledge when he pulled a manuscript from his jacket pocket. "Interesting why O'Neill is spelled that way," he said.
"GOING TO do a play?"
"No, not this one anyway. It isn't O'Neill, or anything worth a hang. I'd like to find a good one."
"Tough, huh?"
He waved at an elderly couple who were waving at him. "You know most of the stuff written today isn't very funny. Nor very stimulating. I read all the time, but I haven't found anything. You're a writer, aren't you?" "Well, yes, but now let's talk about you. Why do you have the best batting average on the series?"
"OH, THOSE things happen. Ever see such a day like today?"
Now we were at the delicatessen. We were offered a table in the corner, but he chose a small table flanked on either side by people and slurping sounds. He ordered a roast beef sandwich and urged me to have the goulash. "I guess you've picked up all that knowledge from events in your life. You were a bomber pilot, weren't you?"
"Were you in the service?" he asked. "Say, where are you from?"
"Texas originally. I read you were born in Kentucky.”
"OHIO," HE said, and autographed the menu for a man seated at the next table. "That's funny," I said. "I read a bio of you and it said Kentucky."
"Well, I was almost born in Kentucky," he explained. "My mother was on a train, and the train got to Ohio in time.”
I didn't say it, but I had also read that he was born on a river boat in Missouri.
"Were you born on anything?" he asked.
"On anything?"
"WELL, A SHIP or something."
"No. I was born in a bed. Just a regular bed."
"Just a bed," he mused. "Well, we better get out of here so they can have the table."
On the street, I said, being born on the train . . .”
"I'll never take over anyone else's role again," he told me.
"Terrible. Terrible. The other actors who have been in the play all along get locked into hearing a line said a certain way. The guy who created the part might have been saying it all wrong, but the rest of the cast is used to it. When you say the line your way, they feel you're some kind of nut.”

"IS THERE any script you think you might do? I need something like that for my story.”
He turned into a building doorway, and we went up in the elevator and into an office. He introduced me to the secretary, and dropped off the play script.
"Tom," I said, when we were on the street again. I felt I now had the right to call him Tom.
He sensed that I was going to say more than his name. He knew there was going to be a return to the question, to what now would be known as The Tom Poston Question.
AND SO HE bobbed into another doorway. We took another elevator. We entered another office. We said hello to another secretary, and Tom pointed to the paintings on the wall. "There's a fine one," he said, "but look at the border. Mauve."
It was his agent's office. His agent was out.
"There's never been a real mauve period for paintings," Tom said. "The yellows, yes. And the reds and blues. But mauve, no."
"You're a student of the fine arts?" I asked.
And he wheeled and took us back to the street. There he met Martin Balsam, an old pal of his. "This man is a writer," Tom said to Balsam.
"Send me something," Balsam said. "I read everything."
"SWELL," I told him. "I've got to get back. See you fellows another time."
From a block away, I looked back. Poston was standing talking to four people, and I wondered about what. Not about Poston, for sure. Not about all the time he's spent on the stage in roles he himself created. Not about the bomber he piloted in World War II.
Not about the old Steve Allen show that made him famous. Or his training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Or the movie. Or the University of Virginia. Or his degree in chemistry.
TO TELL the truth, there was no telling what he might be talking about. But the four people were pleased to be with him. Just as I had been. It's good to see a man like him around.
If we don't bump into him again soon, we'll see him on television anyway. And we'll probably never know how he comes by all the stuff he knows. But do we have to?
Does it really matter if the real Tom Poston never decides to stand up?

I always liked Tom Poston. He struck me as a pleasant man who could be funny instead of a man trying to be funny. And quirky is good, too.

Who Needs Rehearsal?

Bill Cullen is still my favourite game show host.

And my favourite show he hosted was “The Price is Right.”

It was a great show for the viewer. They could smile at some of the more outrageous prizes that Goodson-Todman staffers dug up. They could make their own price guesses. They could watch in suspense as each contestant cogitated their bid. And, occasionally, Bill came up with an unexpected witty or hokey ad-lib. He was, to me, the most genuine game show emcee on TV.

Delving through old newspapers, it’s a little astounding how much was written about the show in the popular press, and was written about Cullen. But The Price is Right, and he, were that popular (even The Flintstones parodied both). Here are a couple for you Cullen fans. The first is one of a number by the Associated Press’ Cynthia Lowry. This was published March 26, 1961.

Bill Cullen's Secret: He Never Rehearses
EDITOR'S NOTE—Bill Cullen, master of ceremonies on “The Price Is Right," is convinced he'd make a terrible contestant. He isn't told beforehand what the prices really are but tries to guess the values as the game goes along. And says the MC, his price is always wrong.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP)—In the clock-watching world of television and radio, busy Bill Cullen lives by a timetable as precise as a railroad schedule. As a result he has more leisure than most of us.
A slight, boyish-looking man with a ready grin and easy manner, Cullen six day work-week is as carefully planned as an architect's blueprint.
"It has to be," remarked the 41-year-old master of ceremonies, disc jockey and panelist, "if I'm going to get around to all bases. Actually, the way I've got it worked out, it's a breeze: The secret is that I never rehearse anything."
Cullen is either facing a television camera or a radio microphone for a total of 25 ½ hours a week. On Wednesdays, his work day spans 14 hours, three shows and two networks. Every weekday he is on camera and mike at least 4½ hours. He loves every minute of it.
LOVES HIS WORK
Cullen is the master of ceremonies of NBC's popular and successful game show, "The Price Is Right," televised live every weekday at 11 a.m. and Wednesday nights at 8:30. (EST.)
He is also a regular panel member of “I’ve Got a Secret” on CBS—also Wednesday night, at 9:30—a seat he has held since the program's third show nine years ago.
Finally, he is the star of a live, daily four hour radio show on WNBC, which from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. broadcasts music, news, weather and light hearted chatter that helps get a large segment of New York millions off to a working day. It is also on from 8 to 10 on Saturday mornings.
The first one up at the Cullen home, however, is his wife Anne, a former actress he married six years ago. "She gets up at 4:45 and makes coffee for me," he said. "And she brews coffee, she doesn't make instant. Then she wakes me up at 5. After I've gone, she goes back to bed.”
Cullen drives to the radio studio. He has a private taxi, a regulation two-tone cab and a driver named Teddy (“I think it would look wrong if a fellow like me drove around in a big, black limousine.”) He never plans the radio show ahead, and upon arriving is merely supplied with a sheet containing the names of the musical pieces to be played and notations of the time there are breaks for news and commercials.
WORKS PUZZLE
"It's easy—I just say anything that comes into my head," he said. "In fact, I spend my time during the musical pieces working on a crossword puzzle."
When the radio stint is over at 10, Cullen rides up to the theater on Broadway from which “The Price is Right” is televised.
“This show requires lots of rehearsal,” Cullen said, “because of all the articles that are shown. And the m.c. has to know exactly what he's doing. If you're in the wrong spot—on a turntable, for instance, when a car is being shown you're apt to be tossed on your face."
NOT AT REHEARSAL
Cullen never attends the rehearsal. His stand-in is an actor named Jim Holland who has worked with Cullen for five years, and goes through his paces for him. Then he jots down, in a shorthand Cullen understands, all the directions: where Cullen is to stand, when the commercials come, and if a "bonus" is to be awarded a prize-winner, what it consists of. The directions are printed on two small cards, which Cullen keeps in his left side pocket and unobtrusively consults from time to time.
Procedures are the same on the Wednesday night show, except that Cullen has only half an hour between the end of "Price" and the start of "I've Got a Secret" in another part of town. Teddy drives him to the other theater. "That," he confessed, "is the easiest job on television. Absolutely no preparation at all. There's nothing to do but get there."



Lowry had other tidbits about Cullen sprinkled in her columns throughout the year. One was on May 11, 1961 where she revealed Cullen was on holidays and someone loaded the wrong video tape of the Wednesday night show onto the network (earlier in the year, Arlene Francis filled in for three weeks). She also included a blurb of Cullen commenting that the strangest prize he ever gave away was 400 shares of CBS stock. The show was on NBC then.

Cullen had planned to get busier that year. He was signed to replace Arthur Godfrey on Candid Camera for the fall season, but soon was un-signed. It turns out Price had a headache pill-pusher as one of its sponsors. Candid Camera did, too. A different one. Sorry, Bill, no conflicts allowed.

The Price is Right moved from NBC to ABC in 1963 (announcer Don Pardo stayed with the Living Color network) and bowed off the air in 1965. Of course, it returned in the ‘70s. The host was now required to get up and move. It would have been a strain on Cullen’s legs and he didn’t return. No matter. He seems to have hosted endless numbers of game shows and continued to work until the mid-1980s. Lung cancer claimed him in 1990.

What's Ahead For TV in 1962?

The only reason for this post is because of this great drawing outlining the history of television to date. It’s the work of Dick Hodgins, Jr. of the Associated Press and accompanied the article below.

What was the trend on TV 50 years ago? The A.P. spoke with Mike Dann who, at this point, was at CBS. He had jumped from NBC, where he was part of Pat Weaver’s regime when Today was put on the air. He later pulled the Smothers Brothers off the air (he seems to have regretted it in later years) and was nervous about the idea of Mary Tyler Moore being divorced on her new sitcom (she was changed to being single but newly-dumped).

This story appeared on May 6, 1962

Trends Guide TV Programs
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP)—"I don't know,” says the television fan sadly, "something’s happened to television. They don't make the shows as good as they used to.”
Then he ticks off favorite programs that he doesn't enjoy as much as he used to. And he blames it on the shows, of course. But the truth is, he has been watching these shows—and shows like them—so long he has just plain gotten tired of them.
He's getting ready for a change—and pretty soon he makes it. And if you multiply that one viewer by satiated millions, you've got a new TV trend in the making.
When the 1961-62 season was but two months old—in November—it was obvious the public's fancy had been caught by another type of program.
Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, both hour-long shows, had caught on immediately. Because they were pretty much alike in form—both about young, handsome, dedicated doctors, both with hospital backgrounds and both had disease as the principal villain—it appeared that the "new" television trend would involve a fresh set of copy-cat clinical dramas.
Not necessarily so, says Michael Dann, a CBS vice president whose job is putting together entertainment programs and arranging schedules. The current trend involves “character dramas,” which includes the two doctor series but also embraces “The Defenders,” which is about a father-son lawyer team.
After all, there have been TV doctors before (Hennesey, a comedy series, centers on a doctor). There certainly have been lawyer stories around for many seasons—Perry Mason, The Law and Mr. Jones, Harrigan and Son, and Lock Up, to mention a few. But—according to Dann's analysis—the focus on and development of the characters in the three new shows are the things that make them fresh and therefore attractive to the home audiences.

It is the peculiar nature of television to leap from trend to trend, with the newest knocking out all but the very best of the old.
The first big trend in programs was discernible in 1949—a year after TV really got moving. Since then there have been some seven types of programs that have moved up to peaks—and then quietly slipped down again.
By 1949, according to Dann's charting, people were caught by the hour-long, live dramas. Those were the days of Philco Playhouse, Kraft Theater, Robert Montgomery Presents and all the rest.
About a year later, a rival came roaring onto the home screen—the big, brassy, raucous comedy-variety show. For the next few years it appeared we couldn’t get enough of Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Ken Murray, Sid Caesar. But again people cooled off and fingers started turning the dials—to the panel shows. What's My Line?, Who's The Boss?, The Name's The Same, Masquerade Party, and on and on.
By about 1956 the panel show was beginning to make way for still another type of program: The big-money quiz show. Who can forget The $64,000 Question, Twenty-One, and all the lesser imitators.
Actually, the quiz craze was waning when the TV scandals broke in 1959 and wiped them off the air—so it was just a question of time anyway.
Riding into the picture was the hour-long western—the so-called adult western—that started with Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. But soon the cowboys and the marshals were looking nervously behind them. Private eyes and heroic policemen, with hour-shows, were gaining fast.
Eventually, they overtook the horse operas and it was the time of the "action" trend—77 Sunset Strip, The Untouchables, and similar stuff. But they started to fade, and this season were overcome by Casey, Kildare, and company. "Next season?" asked Dann. "There is a pretty good balance of programing coming along. And it is one of the few seasons in which it is almost impossible to find a strong trend."

Dann likely didn’t realise it, but the tube was headed toward comedy, the more outlandish, the better. The number one show in 1962-63 was The Beverly Hillbillies; a show Dann claimed in his autobiography he refused to watch after the pilot. It was soon joined by Gilligan’s Island, and high-concept shows like I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and the beloved My Mother the Car. None of these had much in common with family comedies like Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.

And they had nothing in common with the “socially-relevant” comedies that would swamp TV toward the end of the Vietnam War.

Desi

His name will always be joined together with Lucy’s.

“The same old booze and broads” finally broke up Desi Arnaz’s marriage with Lucille Ball. Lucy pushed for I Love Lucy to get on the air because she thought it would save her marriage. It did for a while. And even though Lucy re-married, fans insist the two loved each other until the day she died.

Desi wasn’t an actor when he put I Love Lucy together. Nor was he a producer. He was a musician. His acting skills were passable for the show; he came across as a decent guy. His producing skills were brilliant. He insisted the show be shot on film, meaning the episodes could be re-run. That meant money, money, money, though I imagine CBS got a good chunk of it.

Here’s a syndicated newspaper story April 24, 1958 when he and Lucy were arguably TV’s number one couple.

TV Star-Tycoon Desi Arnaz Gets Lots of Riches But No Emmy for Recognition
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD—(NEA)— Hollywood's biggest house cleaning job had been completed and it was moving day for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Desi wanted to bring along his bongo drum for a fanfare of wild ecstatic beats because of the occasion's significance but Lucy had talked him out of it. With nothing to do, rare for him, Desi just stood and looked at the new Desilu Studio—the big, 14-stage one-time RKO motion picture studio which he and Lucy purchased last fall for $6,150,000.
Then he looked at me and grinned:
"It ain't an Emmy!"
After seven years of TV stardom and executive status as owner-boss with Lucy of a company which produces twice as much film for TV as any of the major movie studios produce for the world's theaters, Desi Arnaz has never won an Emmy or even been nominated for one.
Turned Prophet
He's been called Hollywood's TV tycoon.
He's been called a TV business genius.
He's been called a TV prophet for deciding film was best for "I Love Lucy" back in 1951.
He's been called to watch Lucy accept an Emmy.
But he's never been called to the stage for personal TV recognition.
"There never was an Emmy for my type of performance," he likes to laugh about it. "I even suggested a classification for Cuban fellows with an accent who played the drums, who were married to redheads but nothing happened."
Nothing happened, that is, except that the 41-year-old fellow Lucy calls "The Mad Cuban" became the first TV star to buy a motion picture studio. Or as Hollywood likes to tell it, "Lucy said, 'All I want for Christmas is RKO,' so Desi bought it for her."
Three Studios
What they really own is three studios — two in Hollywood, one in nearby Culver City. Total sound stages: 35. Total TV shows filmed under the Desilu hallmark—27. Along the way, as you may have heard, Lucy and Desi picked up a big home next door to Jack Benny in Beverly Hills and another in Palm Springs, where they also own a hotel and an 18-hole golf course. Not bad for a one-time bongo drummer and a long-time movie comedienne.
Now they hope to make movies, too. Or as Desi tells it: "If we get a good story that just won't fit on that small screen, then we'll do it as a movie feature." It was moving day for Desi¬lu. More room, more stages, bigger offices, Ginger Rogers' old dressing room for Lucy, their favorite foods in the studio cafe, an oak paneled kingdom for Desi, a built-in nursery for the new baby of one of their writers, Madelyn Pugh.
Met at RKO
It was sentimental day and homecoming day, too.
A Hollywood success story with a wallop.
Lucy and Desi met and fell in love on an RKO movie stage in 1940. But RKO studio, now Desilu Studio, fired Desi a few months later. Then RKO didn't agree with Lucy on her career, Desi returned to his old job as a bongo-beating orchestra leader and Lucille moved on to bigger and better roles at MGM.
They found memories of those days during their spring-housecleaning job at the studio. Photos of Lucy in the studio files captioned "screendom's most colorful young actress."
I can even tell you that Desi couldn't even find RKO studio on his first day in Hollywood, He'd been signed after clicking on Broadway in "Too Many Girls." He drove through the entrance to a cemetery ad joining the studio that first day and announced to the surprised gateman:
"I'm Desi Arnaz. I work here."
The gateman laughed and said, "Mister, if you're a live actor, you belong next door. Drive down the street a couple of blocks. That's RKO." And that's Hollywood, too. Today Desi owns RKO.

That all changed within two years. Lucy and Desi shot their final scene together on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in 1960. Lucy filed for divorce days later.

What happened to Desi? Let’s jump ahead nine years. Here’s a wire service piece from August 23, 1967. There were two versions of this feature story. One started “On a clear day, Desi Arnaz can see the horizon line of the blue Pacific from the terrace of his beach home here and even on a foggy morning, he can spot neighbor Jimmy Durante studying a racing form sheet.” There’s no mention of Durante or “buying alfalfa and selling yearlings” in this longer version.

Back In Show Business, Desi Arnaz Is Surprised
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP Television-Radio Writer
DEL MAR, Calif. (AP) — Desi Arnaz, in the period following his divorce from Lucille Ball, sold his stock in Desilu, quit show business and retired to his horse farm, his boat, the track and golf course. He stood it for three years, but now he's back with both feet—and seems a little surprised.
"Things that got me where I was were the things I couldn't do when I got there," said the man who built a camera technique and a comedy series into a giant production company, Desilu, and a fortune.
Arnaz, now in his early fifties, has picked up some weight and his hair shows considerably more salt than pepper. After three years in retirement and two developing new shows he was lured back into television as producer and director of NBC's new comedy series, "The Mothers-in-Law," and has even been persuaded to act in one of the episodes.
After directing the first eight episodes, he is sidelined at his beach home at this Pacific Ocean resort recuperating from a freak accident which almost took his life. A veranda on which he was sitting collapsed and threw him against a metal stake, puncturing his side and requiring emergency surgery.
"I got where I didn't want to be because things began parlaying," said Arnaz, lighting a slim cigar and squinting at the ocean through dark glasses.
"We had a little studio and 'I Love Lucy' and then to compete we had to get a larger studio and from there on we had to get out or get bigger. We wound up with three big studios. But by 1962 I decided I didn't want to be Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios). I wanted to be Willie Wyler (a top film director)."
But for three years, Desi was neither. But his attention inevitably was caught by a book which he thought would make a good movie. Soon William Paley, chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, called him, Arnaz said, and asked if he really intended to return to work—outside television. "No more rat race," Desi told him. "No more wanting things day before yesterday."
"It takes three years to get even in television while losing $5,000 or $10,000 a year," he explained. "I was even then and I didn't know anything about comedy shows with gimmicks where the people take pills or live in bottles. . . Comedy is where you pile one joke on top of another joke and people laugh.
But the result was that Desi Arnaz returned to television, signed by CBS, his old network, to develop shows. And the first venture was based on an idea that had been kicking around Desilu since "I Love Lucy" days.
He first managed to get back Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis who had written all 180 original Lucy shows. Eve Arden was added as the star comedienne, and although not Desi's first choice, Kaye Ballard joined her when Arnaz saw her performing in a night club.
The show was called "The Mothers-in-Law." Then CBS and a rich, important sponsor interested him in finding a situation comedy for Carol Channing. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly.
He planned to use the three-camera, live-on-film technique, made before a studio audience, which he developed for "I Love Lucy."
But then the come-back-story of Desi Arnaz took an unexpected turn. First "The Carol Channing Show" was dropped—then CBS turned thumbs down on "The Mothers-in-Law."
Later, "The Mothers-In Law," which had been developed with CBS money, was rescued—by NBC. Arnaz, naturally, feels that he has a good, funny show for the home folks, but he is hardly cocky since NBC has slotted it in a Sunday night half-hour that has proved to be a Death Valley for a succession of predecessors—opposite the second halves of both CBS' Ed Sullivan hour and ABC's "The FBI."
"I think it's honest comedy," he said with a shrug. "I guess somebody at CBS didn't like it. But I think you have to do something that you like, and then you have to find the right writers and actors who can play it. You start out to do something you think is fun. Then the public will judge. And if we are wrong, well, nuts, I'll go back to the horse ranch."
Arnaz, who handpicked Eve Arden to top-line the new show, says that effective, disciplined comedienne is the rarest bird in show business.
"In the past 30 years, how many really attractive women comediennes can you think of?" he asked. "Carole Lombard, Jean Arthur, Roz Russell, Kay Kendall, Lucy, of course, and Eve—that's just about the whole list.”
Arnaz, talking about women "who do things funny"—as opposed to doing funny things—observed that Jean Arthur can even "open a door funny" and that "Lucy can walk funny."
He is still convinced that the only way to achieve his ideal of television comedy is by using the technique of filming it while the cast is performing each show like a short play before a studio audience.
"You just can't fake those laughs we got," he said. "Hell, they are still using some of those old 'I Love Lucy' laughs as tracks for shows they are making today. Charlie Pomerantz—once the 'Lucy' press agent—and Dee-Dee—Desiree Ball, Lucy's mother—used to come to all the shows, and we all got to know the sound of their laughs. Just the other night I was watching a show and all of a sudden I heard Charlie and Dee Dee laughing."
Since Desi went back to television, Arnaz and his second wife, the former Edie Mark Hirch, have added a third home—an apartment in remodeled offices in one of the Desilu studios which Desi ruled when he was married to Lucille Ball. Now he’s just another of tie studio lessees.
"I like that," he said. "It's good when somebody in the studio comes up to tell me how much it's going to cost me to use something. And I can tell him, hell, he doesn't have to tell me because Fin the guy that set the price originally."

The Mothers in Law had casting problems and eked out two seasons. He made a few TV appearances and packaged some old shows for home video but, basically, it seems he pretty much concentrated on his horses. Arnaz died of lung cancer in late 1986.

People loved Lucy, and still do. I suspect they still like Ricky Ricardo and the man who played him.

Qomeback For Q

It’s hard to say where I saw Robert Q. Lewis first. I suspect it was as the host of Play Your Hunch after Merv Griffin left, but he seemed to be a panelist on all kinds of game shows. He tried to be amusing and urbane. That went over better at New York cocktail parties than on television so he never became a star on the level of Griffin. Still, he was pleasant enough, though off-camera he apparently could get pretty petulant. Arthur Godfrey, who changes “friends” like you and I change socks, employed him as his regular fill-in. He had a variety of network radio shows in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and ended up back in radio in the early ‘60s before a TV comeback.

Then, like many people in television, Lewis disappeared again. It’s jarring seeing him in colour; he belongs to the black-and-white ‘60s in my memory. In the early ‘70s, he was on radio again at KFI Los Angeles (long after its days as an NBC Red network affiliate) talking to celebrities of various stripes (“I am NOT a disc jockey,” he once snarked to the Los Angeles Times in an interview). Before the end of the decade, his radio career dried up and he was acting on stage, which is what he was doing in the latter half of the ‘60s.

Here’s Robert Q. in an Associated Press interview published January 13, 1963. His record-spinning days at KHJ Los Angeles (long after its days as an NBC Blue network affiliate) had ended.

Robert Q. Lewis Likes Familiar Surroundings
By Cynthia Lowry
AP Television-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A funny thing happened to Robert Q. Lewis in the middle of a long and successful television career. Only it wasn't really funny: Suddenly, he couldn't get a job.
"I think it was a kind of over exposure," he reflected. "I don't think that audiences had gotten tired of seeing me around. But I do think I was overexposed to advertising agencies and network executives. Anyway, nobody would hire me."
Lewis, a native New Yorker who had entered show business at the age of 11 as a boy soprano on a radio kiddie's show, shrugged his shoulders philosophically and turned from broadcasting to the theater.
"Stock," he explained. "Most people think that stock companies today consist of summer stock in summer theatres. That's nonsense."
"There's fall stock, winter stock and spring stock, all over the country," Lewis said. "And if you've had television exposure, you can make good money playing in every contemporary American comedy written in the last 20 years and playing in them all over the country."
Three years ago, tall, slim, bespectacled Lewis did just that, appearing in such shows as "The Tender Trap," "The Gazebo," "Tunnel of Love," and "Seven Year Itch" in companies from Long Island to the Pacific Coast.
"It was great for me as a performer getting out all over the country, meeting people and getting the feel of an audience," he continued. "But the one drawback is that I'm a guy who likes his own home and to be in the middle of his own things. Hotel rooms are barren and dreadful."
Lewis, a dedicated bachelor, is a passionate art collector. He began as a child, when an uncle who was an art dealer took him to visit Pablo Picasso in the great painter's Paris studio. As they left, Picasso, who had taken a fancy to the boy, scribbled on a piece of paper, rolled it up and tucked it under his arm. It was a drawing, inscribed personally to Lewis. Today, worth many thousands of dollars, it is the keystone of a collection that includes paintings at well as sculpture.
"Obviously, you can't carry around paintings with you from hotel to hotel," Lewis said, "and, to be truthful, I get lonely without them."
Finally, he was fed up and asked his agent to find him a job in which he could settle down in one place.
"I'd spent years as a disc jockey," he said, "and decided to go back to it. There were many advantages. I decided I'd like to be in a place with a good, warm climate — either Florida or California."
His agent, fortunately for Lewis, found him an early morning spot on a local Los Angeles radio station where, in 1961, he resumed an earlier occupation, billing himself as "the world's worst disc jockey."
He promptly bought himself a house, complete with pool, took his collection out of packing boxes and within a few months became a rabid California booster. "It was a great life," he said, almost sadly. "I was up every morning at 4:45 to get to my show — it started at 6:30. I was finished by 10 and had the rest of the day to myself. That kind of a schedule meant I could accept television guest shots, wander through galleries and museums or just sit around the pool."
Lewis first entered broadcasting as an announcer on a Troy, N.Y., station in 1941 — and was the only announcer at the station on that Sunday in December when the first bulletin on the attack on Pearl Harbor hit the news wires. It was a busy day.
After an Army hitch, he became an announcer on a New York City station, with a morning program, a daily hillbilly sing and still a third daily comedy show. He joined CBS radio in 1947 and first came to major public notice substituting for Arthur Godfrey. He was a hit.
In the earlier television days he had a number of shows of his own — "The Name's the Same," "The Show Goes On," and "The Robert Q. Lewis Little Show" among them.
Then, when host Merv Griffin wanted to quit "Play Your Hunch" for a daytime variety show of his own, Goodson and Todman asked Lewis to come East for a two week on-the-air audition for the permanent job. Lewis won the job.
Now — paintings and sculpture along with him — Lewis is back in his home town again. But has he cut his ties with beloved California?
"No," he said firmly. "And I won't sell my home. It's just leased to my agent. Even if it's only on vacations, I'll be going back from time to time."
The initial Q. in his name? It doesn't stand for anything — just in there to make his name different from all the other Robert Lewises.

Is the Great Pumpkin All That Great?

55 years ago today, Charles Schulz didn’t put on the small screen a character he didn’t put in the Peanuts comic strip. The character is the Great Pumpkin.

I guess I should qualify this. The beneficent vegetable isn’t seen in the strip. Is there a Great Pumpkin at all? The fact Linus continues to believe there is, despite no proof and annual no-shows, would make for a deeper discussion viz-a-viz religious faith than a mere comic strip would attempt. And certainly we won’t do it here. We shall, instead, discuss the TV special born after annual Hallowe’en seasonal plot-lines Schulz wrote and drew starting in 1959.

Schulz explained how the Great Pumpkin came to be in what looks like a network PR release that papers picked up before the special first aired on October 27, 1966.

The Great Pumpkin Now 'Real' Legend
Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz had never heard of the Great Pumpkin until Linus brought it to his attention.
Neither had anybody else.
But now largely because of the faith and loyalty of the little blanket-toting philosopher of the "Peanuts” comic strip the Great Pumpkin is fast becoming a legend in his (or its) own time.
Schulz, creator and artist-author of the “Peanuts” syndicated cartoon strip, also writes the stories for the Charlie Brown animated holiday specials, the third of which—“It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown”—will be broadcast in color Thursday on CBS-TV as a salute to Halloween and a tribute to the mysteries of the Pumpkin.
Who Is He (It)?
Who (or what) is the Great Pumpkin and where did he (or it) come from?
"It all came about," Schulz recalls, “when I was trying to write a sequence for the strip involving Linus's confusion between Halloween and Christmas. The holidays run together so quickly at the end of the year — Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s— that it all becomes kind of a jumble to little children.

"Linus is a youngster to whom everything must have significance nothing is unimportant Christmas is a big holiday and it has Santa Claus as one of its symbols. Halloween is also a special kind of day so it ought to have some sort of Santa Claus, too. That’s what bothered Linus. And it bothered me. So between us we came up with the Great Pumpkin.”
Linus’s Definition
According to Linus's definition the Great Pumpkin rises out of its pumpkin patch on Halloween night and flies through the air with its bag of toys for all the good children everywhere.
“It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” tells the story of how Linus, in spite of the jeers of his fellow "Peanuts,” takes up his vigil in the pumpkin patch to await the appearance of the magic Pumpkin.
Each year Schulz receives hundreds of letters from readers all over the world inquiring into the legend of the Great Pumpkin.
"A number of professional scholars have written me about the origin of the legend they insist that it must be based on SOMETHING,” the artist says.
"I can't prove that there is a Great Pumpkin but then again — I can't prove that there isn't.”

What did the critics think? Ben Gross of the New York Daily News said it was “marked by whimsy and some touch of subtlety,” taking a shot at Saturday morning action-adventure cartoons. John Heisner of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle called it “a half-hour of good, clean fun,” concluding with “it was an enjoyable show.”

The Associated Press’ TV columnist had her review printed in papers across the country, mentioning a TV appearance I’ve never heard of before.

‘Charlie Brown’ Charming, Witty
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
AP TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Charlie Brown and his little friends celebrated Halloween on CBS Thursday night and demonstrated that faith and an optimistic attitude triumph in the end.
The worried little cartoon character, Charlie, continues to have a hard time. He was invited to his first Halloween party but hard-hearted Lucy immediately chopped him down by telling him that it was a mistake. When he went out trick-or-treat tag, the other kids wound up with the money and the candy: He got a bag of rocks. But in the end, he was certain he had been having fun.

Chief protagonist of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," was his friend, Linus, the boy with the blanket. Linus, although jeered by his pals, shivered all night in a pumpkin patch awaiting the arrival of "The Great Pumpkin Who Flies Through the Air and Brings Toys to All the Children in the World."
As in two past specials about Charlie, the half-hour animated show had charm, adult wit and wisdom.
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One of the contestants on Thursday afternoon, "To Tell the Truth" on CBS just happened to be the director of CBS, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and not only was the evening special plugged repeatedly but a bit of it was previewed for the home audience. The whole segment, including the plug occupied close to one-third of the half-hour program.

But you know there had to be a least one sour pumpkin in the critic crowd. In this case, it was the man who called The Flintstones “an inked disaster.” Jack Gould of the New York Times proclaimed the special was for fans only.

Charlie and Friends
To the admirers of Charlie Brown and his little friends it is axiomatic that their creator, Charles Schulz, can do no wrong. Accordingly last night’s Halloween cartoon special on the Columbia Broadcasting System undoubtedly satisfied its intended audience. Linus sadly learned that no Great Pumpkin would appear in his patch of innocent sincerity.

Charlie was invited to his first party and Snoppy [sic] survived an aerial dog fight.
“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” was for aficionados of the “Peanuts” comic strip. One suspects their imaginations and fond recollections may have supplied the humor and charm that to the unaddicted seemed notably missing from the TV variation.

We’ll leave the last word to Clay Gowran of the Chicago Tribune. He accurately predicted the future, pointing out Linus told Charlie Brown at the end of the special he would try to attract the Great Pumpkin “again next year”:

We hope he does, and that he brings the whole gang back with him, because these little animated specials have become a high point of the video season.

Attempts to shove it onto pay cable notwithstanding, the “little animated special” is still with us.

Moore Goes Big Time

Nestled amongst the serials and game shows on daytime TV in the ‘50s were low-key variety shows. Besides a name star, there were a singer or two, and a comedian, a sketch perhaps, and maybe a guest if the budget allowed for it.

Bob Crosby hosted one, as he did on radio. So did Robert Q. Lewis, Arthur Godfrey, Jack Paar, Tennessee Ernie Ford and a few others.

Another was Garry Moore.

Moore was picked in 1943 to fill a hole in what was pretty much an emergency move by NBC and it was agreed to toss in Jimmy Durante as well. Moore was a comedian who wrote his own off-beat and, at times, silly material. Durante was Durante. But the two meshed instantly and the show was a hit. It moved to CBS and continued only until Moore decided he wanted to go it alone in 1947.

Eventually Moore got a daytime radio, then a daytime TV, show and was hired in 1952 to emcee I’ve Got a Secret on Sunday nights on top of that. But he wanted more. And, evidently, CBS saw enough potential income in him to give him an hour of prime time.

The big time meant big changes. So long, Denise Lor and Ken Carson, we wish you well on your future endeavours. Only announcer Durwood Kirby made the jump from daytime (Nelson Case and Barbara Britton also handled commercials). Jack Benny’s old director Ralph Levy was brought in to produce. Writers included Vinny Bogert, Herb Finn (later at Hanna-Barbera) and ex-Benny jokester John Tackaberry. There was Howard Smith’s orchestra. There were dancers. There was befuddled Marion Lorne.

Here’s Levy’s take on the coming show, from a column of September 7th. Levy was gone in a month. He quit over how the show was done; he was under exclusive contract with CBS, so it would appear he wasn’t disagreeing with the network.

Garry to Join the Titans of TV
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK—Garry Moore, the cheerful sailor with the crewcut who for lo these years has given the American housewife her best excuse for a morning coffee break, moves into television's big leagues Sept. 30.
The Garry Moore Show, complete with $100,000 weekly budget, singing, dancing, comedy sketches and guest stars, will place him in the company of the TV titans—Como, Allen, Sullivan, Shore—as star of a nighttime variety program.
Moore, of course, is no stranger to the big after-dark audience. But there is a lot of difference between moderating a half-hour panel show like "I've Got a Secret" and being the heart of an hour-long revue, an area in which the competition is keen.
"The trick," says Ralph Levy, the producer who holds Moore's fate in his hands, "Is not to be different, but to be better. Let's face it, there are probably 25 top girl singers in the business, about 10 top comedians and maybe four top dancers. Before one season is over, the audience is going to see just about all of them on all the variety shows. It is how they are used which is going to be important.
Moore's show, which already has been sold to two sponsors, will have four or five high-priced writers on a permanent basis, but Levy also has budgeted a large amount for free lance material.
"A lot of good comedy writers are busy on other things, but can be called on to tailor special material for visiting stars," explained Levy. "And we'll use special writers to integrate the commercials and make sure that the show itself gets a change of pace which is not always possible if the regular writing staff is used all the time."
Moore's peers in the variety show business are performers with special talents. Perry Como and Dinah Shore are singers; Steve Allen plays the piano; Bob Hope is a comedian. Moore's gift is quite another thing.
"Garry brings to the show sincerity, honesty, great enthusiasm and warmth," says Levy. "His appeal to sponsors—and he is a truly great salesman—is that sincerity and honesty. So when Moore says that he wants to introduce a singer he thinks is great, the audience believes him. Moore is what I'd call a television personality, and one who reflects a high level of popular taste.
"On the other hand, he can do a little of everything. He can dance along a little with a dancing star, sing along with a singer and he can play straight man to comedians. But basically we are going to be building his show around his enthusiasm and his sincerity."
Moore's new show should be off to a running autumn start with a ready-made audience of devoted housewives who will sorely miss his old morning show.
Levy, while he appreciates the interest of the ladies, doesn't want the evening audience to get the idea that the only thing which is happening to Moore is a transfer of his old weekday morning show to a once-a-week night show. That is one reason that the fact Moore will bring along with him two or three of his regulars, including Durwood Kirby, is not being emphasized.
"But we'll definitely carry over the old feeling of informality," Levy insists, "with Moore stepping over the footlights to sit on the stage steps and thus enter the living room.
Levy, a veteran producer, has definite ideas about the use of the camera on different types of shows.
"You'll never see great camera work on a good comedy show," he insists. "In a dramatic show, the camera can embellish the action—move in to catch an expression, swing around to catch some action while an actor speaks his lines. But if a comedian is telling a joke when the camera is moved an iota, the joke is ruined.
"I like to think of the camera in this kind of a show as just another person sitting in the audience. I plan to put the camera with long lenses in the back of the theater and keep them there. "And of course we'll work with live audiences. Performers aren't necessarily actors, and all the great performers need the chemistry of an audience. Without one, their performance suffers and the home audience knows that something is wrong."

The show debuted September 30th. Here’s a syndicated column from that day which gives you an idea of the difference between daytime and prime time when it comes to fame.

Garry Moore Show Bows Tonight
By HARVEY PACK
George Gobel made about 30 appearances on Garry Moore's daily daytime variety show, but nobody ever heard him except housewives. When Garry did his seventh anniversary show in the morning slot, he asked a group of CBS executives to catch the show. Their first comments were. "Seven years! I didn't know he'd been on for seven years. Did anyone send the guy flowers?" In a way that's why Garry Moore is happy to be crawling cut of his shell with a night-time variety show that debuts this evening over CBS.
I spoke to the gentleman whose youthful appearance made the crew cut toupee outsell the old-fashioned mop at his CBS office last week. The guardian of America's most unimportant secrets has thrown a mysterious cloud around the format of his new frolic.
Won't Waste Stars
"It's not that I don't know what I'm going to do myself, but "some of the little surprises we're planning would be bombs if we publicized them." He cited a couple of "off the record" samples and Garry's show really worries me—it may actually be clever and different.
"One thing I don't intend to do is waste guest stars. I bought a terrific sketch for an October showing which called for a cowboy hero who can really act. I wanted Richard Boone (Have Gun Will Travel) to do the sketch, so we contacted him. He's not available until March, so we've put the routine on the shelf until Boone is our guest. I'm not going to waste material on the wrong performers. After I get the sketch—then I'll cast it," Moore explained.
For seven years Garry showcased new talent on his morning show. As people like Gobel went through their paces, Garry practically got on his knees and begged the TV people to give the newcomers a break. But while Moore was pleading, the people he was appealing to were, having coffee in their offices and trying to think of fresh new talent to put into night-time shows. Now, a Garry Moore booking will be a break for a comic and Garry is looking forward to using some of the youngsters he tried last season.
With "I've Got a Secret" still riding high on Wednesday and his own show on Tuesday, Garry's routine has become a bit hectic. Although he had to come up with a variety format five days a week last year, the preparation became a routine task and featured regular, although long, hours.
Marion Lorne on Show
"Now that I have to be in town at least two evenings, the wife and I are going to take a place in New York City and spend three nights a week here. It's easier without children." The Moores are practically newlyweds this year as both their sons are away at school, and they're just getting used to their new-found freedom and the accompanying loneliness.
The regulars on the Moore show will be Marion Lorne, whose performance in "Harvey" was the first big smash of the young TV season, and Durward Kirby. Kirby was with Garry in the morning and millions of housewives have seen the man do comedy for years. "But I have to break him in like a newcomer, because most of the people have never heard of him. That's daytime television," commented Garry. Marion will appear as the producer's assistant and will wander in and out of scenes merely being Marion Lorne which should please everybody.
When Garry was doing the daytime stint there were 94 people in his entire crew. For the one evening program there are 94 people engaged in behind-the-scenes work alone. After Moore called the morning show quits, he was forced to let many of his staff members go, but they're all back at their desks again hoping to give the boss a winner.

Moore had his problems on opening night. Johnny Mathis walked out because he wasn’t allowed to plug his new record. Levy quickly brought in Gordon MacRae. Critics were mixed about the show. But it did carry on through 1964, showing Moore had some staying power. He also had problems with (surprise!) CBS president Jim Aubrey, but that’s for another column.

You’ll notice one name is absent through all this—Carol Burnett. She appeared on several of the first season shows but didn’t become a regular until the following year. Burnett learned well from Moore but while his variety show is obscure today, Burnett’s effort in the ‘60s and ‘70s is being marketed to new fans and shows how entertaining variety could be when done well.